A federal appeals court has upheld a decision mandating that IconHealth and Fitness pay $1.6 million in attorney's fees for filing an unwarranted patentlawsuit against a competitor.

Iconsued Octane Fitness in 2009, saying thatOctane's high-end elliptical machines infringed US Patent No.6,019,710, which describes an elliptical machine that allows for adjustments to accommodate individual strides.After two years of litigation, a district court judge found that Octane's machines didn't infringe. Octane asked for an award of legal fees, but later in 2011, a judgerejected the company's bid. That decision was upheld on appeal.

Octane didn't get its fee award, despite the fact that it had uncovered e-mails in discovery suggesting that Iconwas simply using the lawsuit to hamper a smaller competitor. An Icon executive had described the '710 patent as an "old patent we had for a long timethat was just sitting on the shelf."

But the fact is, it was nearly impossible to win fees in a patent case in 2011. However, Octane didn'ttake its loss sitting down. The companyappealed to the Supreme Court, whichheard oral arguments onthe case in 2014.

In a 9-0 vote, the courtissued an opinion (PDF)making it much easier to get attorney's fees. Justice Sonia Sotomayorwrote the opinion, holding that patent laws call for awarding fees in an "exceptional" case, which is "simply one that stands out from others with respect to the substantive strength of a party's litigating position... or the unreasonable manner in which the case was litigated."

With that, the case was kicked back down to the lower courts. Under the new standard, the district court judge awarded $1.6 million to Octane, over the objections of Icon lawyers.

On Friday, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld (PDF) that award in its entirety. The district court foundthat Icon's claim construction arguments were"wholly at odds with the patent text, prosecutionhistory, and inventor testimony," The court alsofound that Icon includedNellie's Fitness, an equipment distributor, as a defendant for the purpose increasing Octane's legal costs.

The appeals judges found "no clear error in its analysis" andupheld the district court's award.The panel dismissed a cross-appeal by Octane asking for a larger award, which would also cover litigation over the fees.

There's no higher courtto appeal the case to except forthe Supreme Court, which has already weighed in on the matter. That makes the chances of a further appeal infinitesimal, and the $1.6 million figure is likelyfinal.

Octane's lawyer, Rudy Telscher, said in a 2014 interview with Arsthat his clienthad spent about $2 million in defense costs at that time. The only reasonOctane was able to pursue the matter for so long, Telscher said, is because the company had purchased IP litigation insurance.

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Fitness company that took its patent case to Supreme Court gets $1.6M fee award - Ars Technica